


unravel me.

by irishais



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, I lied there's definitely going to be smut, Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV (2016), Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, but here we are and this is a thing now, for now there's feelings, how did i get this invested this quickly what is happening, i would like to point out that i never intended on making this a whole thing, lunyx, most likely, the lunyx road trip no one asked for, there's probably gonna be smut, this, this was supposed to be something short and simple and not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-31 08:49:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13971537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishais/pseuds/irishais
Summary: All he knows now is that the treaty is broken, but what that means for the future is still uncertain. Lunyx, a stolen car, and the long road before them.





	1. Chapter 1

It takes too long to make a second escape from Insomnia (admittedly a first for him, but Lunafreya shouldn't _be_ here, not again). They find themselves hugging the shadows of the outside roads, the princess carrying more of his weight than Nyx would like to admit, but he’s also grateful he’s not been left alone in a pile of rubble, dying in a beautiful dawn, so he'll take the help.

He makes her stop for the fourth time in two hours, long enough to vomit up the remnants of bile and blood, and what turns out to be the ruined casings of several bullets. Nyx stands there panting, hands on his knees, staring at the metal shards for a long time before he finally identifies them for what they are. He spits a last mouthful of blood, running his tongue along the inside of his mouth for anything else unexpected. 

There is nothing, save the ache in his gut, the baking smolder of the old kings’ magic that Luna had channeled retreating at a slow clip from his body, his bones. His arm looks new-made, skin too taut, any hair that had once been there scorched off. 

_ Looks like it’s long sleeves for a while,  _ he thinks. 

It’s a ridiculous thought. Then again, hasn't he earned a couple of ridiculous thoughts? He's pretty sure he's not supposed to be here at  _all_ , much less all in one piece.

The princess puts her hand on his back, worry in her voice as she asks,“Can you continue on?” 

What he  _ wants  _ to do is lie down right here in the weeds and sleep for a week. Nyx wipes his mouth with the back of his hand instead, and nods. “Yeah. I’ll be fine. We should see if we can find a car, though. Catch a ride.”

The ruins of the city are still too close for comfort when he chances a glance back over his shoulder. They find a car twenty minutes later, a sedate beige thing with carefully-patched spots that Nyx thinks can only have once been rust-- if it gets them to a hotel, a haven, somewhere they can hunker down for a day or so, it’ll do. 

It doesn’t bother him as much as it should to pull the corpse from behind the driver’s seat, an older woman whose frozen, terrified death mask reminds him too much of Crowe’s. When he catches the expression on Lunafreya’s face, he makes an effort to put the woman somewhere shady, tucking her body in the forked branch of an old tree. They don’t have time for anything more; he doesn’t miss the Oracle’s whispered prayer as he throws the car in gear and speeds away. 

They don’t talk until they find a rest stop; he leaves his uniform coat buried in the trunk, pulling an old baseball cap down low over his brow. Luna swims up through an oversized, pilling sweater that smells like Galdin seawater, salt and sand. There isn’t anything she can do about her shoes.

“You might want to--” he gestures to her head, and it takes her less time to gather the implication of his statement than Nyx would have expected. She deftly undoes her braids. With her hair down and a pair of sunglasses on, she looks less like the Oracle (still like the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.)

So many people must have come through here already, fleeing the Fall, that they conduct their business nearly unnoticed, trading the handful of gil that Nyx still miraculously has in his wallet for convenience junk food, cans of Ebony, bottles of water, touristy t-shirts that serve as nothing more than an effort to get out of the clothing that feels like it’s permanently adhered itself to his skin. Luna cleans up her face in the washroom, and volunteers to fill the tank in a murmured voice.

What do they teach royalty in Tenebrae? She’s much more competent at this whole escape and espionage thing than he would have expected. He pays for the gas along with the food, tossing a map of the area on their pile at the last minute, keeping his head low, his voice pitched down. 

They escape without incident. When he turns on the radio, there isn’t a screaming alert for them, just news of the battle, the attack, the death of King Regis (long live King Noctis, if he’s even still alive, and the broadcaster’s voice seems to betray her opinion that both king and heir are dead.) Lunafreya spends a solid half-hour reading the ingredients in her canned coffee, face unreadable any time he looks at her. 

Nyx turns on the headlights as the day lengthens into early dusk, miles of road eaten up beneath their borrowed wheels. The silence goes unbroken, until it shatters.

“I’m sorry,” Lunafreya says, as they pass through the nowhere boundaries of Hammerhead; the tank still registers three-quarters full, and he doesn’t want to risk a second stop. Nyx pulls his attention from the road long enough to glance her way-- her hands are balled up tight in her lap and what he can see of her dress streaked with blood, ash, smoke. She pulls the sweater taut across her thighs. 

He gets more distracted than he would care to admit about the quiet downturn of her lips, the resolve that fights to stay in her face, but maybe that’s the magic still sparking in his veins, or the terrifying realization of how close he’d come to dying, for real, for  _ good _ this time. He almost misses his cue. 

“About what?”

What does she have to be  _ sorry  _ about? She’d saved his damn life, at risk of her own; no one has done that for him, unless one counted battlefield theatrics in the name of Lucis.

“About Crowe. About the king.”  

He has a sinking suspicion that she would apologize for the whole damn thing if she could, Ravus and Glauca and the lot of them, but Nyx would like to avoid that path of conversation for as long as he can-- preferably forever-- deciding to focus instead on the least offensive of those things. 

“It’s not your fault. We all knew the risks when we joined up.” They were only mortal men and women, after all, the common people made proud and strong by a Crystal, by a King. Death was coming for all of them eventually. Crowe’s was just... more unfair than others, the tear-streaked horror something he wishes he’d never seen, right up there with the sound of Lib’s cry. 

But there are many things Nyx wishes he’d never seen, never heard, and Crowe is not the first corpse he’s laid eyes on. 

“I know. I just... keep thinking about the hairpin. About how she was meant to bring it to me. About what it truly was.” 

“There was nothing you could have done. You didn’t know. We didn’t know, either.” He’d given it to her, after all, finished that last piece of Imperial espionage, handing it to her like he was doing his dead comrade a  _ favor _ , instead of endangering them all. 

There’s a motel up ahead, inviting in the darkness, daemons probably sniffing all around them. Nyx hits the turn signal, and pulls into the lot. 

“You stay here,” he tells her, not that she’s ever been great at following orders herself. “I’ll be right back.”

Lady Lunafreya, for a wonder, does as she’s told. He rents a room with the last of his cash, his card something he doesn’t want to risk using, just in case any of the Niffs are watching. Will he ever stop looking over his shoulder now that he knows how south things can go, and how quickly they can get there? 

Probably not. 

The room is small, smelling vaguely of mildew masked by bleach and artificial air fresheners; it feels downright  _ claustrophobic _ when the door is shut and locked behind them. He does a sweep, comes up empty of intruders hiding beneath beds or inside closets. 

“I’m going to freshen up,” Lunafreya says. She disappears into the bathroom, one of the replacement shirts clutched in her hands, before he can say anything at all, so when she says his name a couple of moments later, it catches him off-guard, like the way her voice hitches on the single syllable. 

The bathroom is tiny, but the light is terribly bright, and her shoulder is a mess of red, dried smears around a knot of  _ very  _ freshly-healed tissue.

“I need your help,” she tells him, her voice surprisingly level despite the fact that she looks like she might faint right then and their. 

How had he forgotten, her cry, her stumble in their mad flight? In his defense, a lot had been happening at the time, but she should have  _ said  _ something, made mention of the fact that she’d been  _ shot _ \--

Oracles shouldn’t have scars like that, Nyx thinks, and he reaches without thinking to touch it, fingers stopping a millimeter shy of her skin, the crimson-stained strap of her bra. 

“Princess--” 

“I’m fine. I just can’t reach all of the-- the blood.” 

He takes the warm, soaked washcloth she offers him, and doesn’t miss the way her fingers go white-knuckled as they tighten around the edge of the sink at his touch.


	2. Chapter 2

While she showers, he makes himself a cup of tepid coffee, trying to chase away the ghosts that linger in the corners of his eyes, sleep a phantom that threatens to steal him off. Every beat his eyes slip closed is enough reason for a ghost, a monster, the Old Wall, the feeling of a bullet, the sharp knife of fire as it crackles up his arm.

The gods give, and they take away.

_Where do I sign?_

He sends Libertus one text, finger pushing hard against a spiderwebbed screen, _we’re alive_ , tossing the phone aside and ignoring the pursuant buzz of a response, two, seven, nine texts, three phone calls before it goes silent-- Nyx reaches for it, finally, and finds it dead, no response when he presses the power button repeatedly.

The bed is too tempting a lure, but there’s only one in this room, and he’s traveling with the Oracle, the future _Queen_ , after all, kisses in the ruins of Insomnia aside. He’ll sleep in this chair, or on the floor. Won’t be the worst digs he’s ever had, not by a long shot.

The chair is terrible, creaking as he stretches, feeling a thousand things pull and pop in his back, his shoulders. He stands, paces, makes more coffee. Sits again, staring out at the moon and the fog that rolls across the parking lot, something out of a horror movie as it obscures everything in its path. The second cup goes mostly cold between his palms.

“There’s still some hot water, I think.” Lunafreya’s voice breaks through whatever he’s thinking about-- Nyx isn’t even sure, only that whatever it is, he doesn’t want to be thinking about it anymore. He tries not to notice the way she holds her left arm closer to her body, or the fact that the hem of her shirt stops about five inches above her knees, or the way her hair hangs in damp waves around her face.

“I’ll scrub up, and then take the floor,” Nyx says, jerking his head toward the lone bed. “You get some rest.” He gets up with a dull pop in both of his knees. Lunafreya doesn’t protest, not that he expects her to. She’s a _princess_ ; princesses don’t sleep on questionable carpet. A paltry excuse, a justification for his escape. A lie he tells himself in the garish mirror as he studies his broken reflection.

It takes a lot longer than he expects to scrub off the battlefield from his skin this time.

She’s still awake when he emerges, and when she reaches for him as he makes to move past, to take up watch in the chair he’s claimed as his bed, he doesn’t resist, doesn’t argue. They wrap up in each other, their own ward against the darkness, the daemons, the Niflheim.

Her hand is clammy and pale in the moonlight, save for the ink-dark brand that the ring of the Lucii left in its wake; he brings it to his lips, kissing her knuckles with glancing blows. It is a distraction at best, some small comfort at worst. Part of him wonders if she will strike him for his impertinence, the part of him that still thinks the world is the same, and that he lives only to serve his king and court.

Is he really going to be the one to sully her honor in a shitty little motel half-past the middle of the night?

(Is he really even _thinking_ about that right now?)

 _You’re in too deep, Ulric_.

But he’s been in too deep since she sought him out to ask his name, since that smile crossed her lips and she told him that there was undoubtedly no safer place to be.

Lady Lunafreya unfolds only to fold around him, her mouth seeking his with more desperate precision than any damn Niff magitek could ever hope to achieve. He has no words for how she tastes, toothpaste-minty, maybe, a bit of ash. Nyx has never been very good at that sort of thing, for all his clever sweet-talking. All he knows is that this isn’t right, but he isn’t going to stop, not while he can breathe, not while she clings to him like _hope_.

The sheer, sweet audacity of hope, in the most run-down of all places, but at least the four walls are solid around them. At least they are _alive_ , something he will pin all of this on later. Much, much later, when he thinks of the way she cleaves to him and how his hands fit around her hips, the small of her back, t-shirt rucked up and shed onto the floor.

His hands stutter along her ribs when she lands her lips against the tiny tattoo that traces a cheekbone, a pit-stop on the map of his face. She is memorizing him, he realizes belatedly, when he attempts to pull her back, when she reaches to hold him steady between her palms.

Will he be her first? The prospect is terrifying, but not so much as being her _last_ , and the road ahead is long, dark, looming.

“Luna...”

(Whatever it is, it can only be here, only right now; he focuses on the dip of her stomach, and her hands are bold as they seek the hem of his shirt.)

She maps his collarbone, the planes of his chest, the hills and valleys of a hundred scars with stories so ancient he’s forgotten most of them, and now they’re just part of his body, the ruined lightning-strike of his arm something he might get to tell his grandkids about one day.

(Whatever this is, it cannot last. Maybe the kings have only given him one more day, a final gift to a doomed man-- Nyx intends to stave off dawn as long as he can, if this is the case.)

What love story is left for them, the princess and the Glaive? She is betrothed, although the treaty must have fallen like the Crown City itself, a smoldering wreck of hopeful promises wrapped around betrayal. This isn’t a fairy tale, after all. This can’t be--

He breathes her name against her skin, his breath refracting warm right back at him, like the dawn of a new day; she draws her fingers through his hair, tangling them up in the braids that threaten to come loose with every tug, pulling him back to her.

He’d been dead-- he’d been so _close_ to death that he could taste it, see the grinning spectres of everyone who’d made it there before him _waiting_ for his arrival, welcoming him to the inevitable end with open arms. He’d traded his _life._ That was the deal. He’d given up everything, all things, any prospect of a future, any hope of tomorrow-- this, he’d given up _this_ , all for Insomnia, for _her_.

His fingers leave a constellation of red marks on her thigh, a touchstone of reality beneath his grip; her body arches, the holiest of prayers in the way she breathes his name.

 _Not all miracles are made by magic._ Her voice, a distant echo even as she whispers his name.

 _This one might be,_ he thinks. _Just maybe_.


	3. Chapter 3

The ring fits too easily around her finger, and tightens, binds. The world plunges into darkness-- she stands alone, a white glittering diamond in the center of nothing--  _ show yourself!  _ she yearns to command, but her kingdom no longer stands. Lunafreya doesn’t know if she has the right to command anything, anymore. 

_ please _ , she begs instead,  _ please let me save him _ . 

Her skin tingles, like her palm is being forced over an open flame. 

_ please-- we need him. i need him.  _

Does one plead with old kings, old gods? Beg them, weep at their feet? She stands with her back straight and her blue eyes resilient, candle-fire licking up her fingers, snapping at her wrist, even as her words edge toward desperation. 

_ please let him live, let him save us all.  _

They pass judgement on her, and she immolates like a phoenix. 

\--

“ _ Hey _ , hey-- it’s okay, easy, easy, I’ve got you--” 

The fire surges and shrieks and screams around her, and it is only when Nyx’s hands hold fast to her shoulders, stilling her in the middle of the inferno that the scream stops, that Lunafreya’s lips slam shut like a steel trap, choking on the memory of smoke and magic and darkness. 

She breathes, a deep inhalation that beats at her chest, something rattling deep within her, a slow, shaking exhalation that feels like she will deflate in his grasp. 

“I...I’m alright.” She will never be alright, not after Ravus and Regis and Luche and  _ Nyx _ , all that death, all that blood, the scent of burnt flesh engraved in her nose forever, and so, so much blood. 

He’s looking at her like he doesn’t believe her, eyes narrowed, the magic-healed scarring at his cheek and temple wrinkling with the motion. Looking at it pains her, so Lunafreya looks past him, at his ear, at the braid coming loose, at the moon still hanging low in the curtainless window of the motel room. It isn’t even morning. 

She is aware that her hands are still digging for purchase against his chest, striated with more scars, more battlefield debris. Her exhalation is steadier, warding away the remains of the nightmare (the memory.) It takes a long time to find her words, floundering for them in the silence, in the way Nyx searches her face, seeking something, anything. 

Her voice comes like molasses, the last strings of it slipping from a spoon to land like mines between them.    


“Really. I’m okay. It was just a dream.”    
  
“Some dream.” His arms come around her, pulling her forward without resistance so that her cheek ends up tucked against the angle of his collarbone, the broad plane of his chest. He smells of soap and sweat and the residue of a fire spell, the last of his magic burned up and cast out. 

Lunafreya breathes it in, breathes it out. 

It is easier to stay like this than she would like to admit, her own fingers skimming up his back, letting her eyes close until the afterimages of death and pain have passed, until the booming of Regis’ voice, amplified by the echo chamber of fate, finally fades from her ears.  _ We have found this warrior worthy _ . 

Her own covenant had been struck, just as Nyx’s had, and she knows there will be no second chances. Not for either of them. 

She stays tangled up with him until dawn finally breaks, sunlight sliding across their bare skin, and Nyx stirs again only when she shifts in his arms, breaking free to find her shirt. It takes a frustratingly long time to figure out the rudiments of the tiny coffee maker; no, Nyx Ulric, they do  _ not  _ teach such things at the Royal Academy in Tenebrae, basic life skills right up there with flying battered enemy airships, but she makes do, and comes away with two cups of something that is not quite coffee, dashed with artifice dressed up like powdered dairy. 

Nyx’s thanks is bleary, unformed; he drinks most of the cup in a few long swallows, and throws his undamaged arm back over his eyes, warding off the day in favor of a few more moments of rest. 

“What are these?” she asks, digging through the plastic convenience store sack, holding up a handful of bars with labels in a language she doesn’t know. He must be fond of them; he’s gotten half a dozen. 

Nyx cracks open one eye from beneath his arm, and closes it again. “Breakfast bars. They’re pretty good.” 

It will have to do as an explanation-- he needs more rest than she does, gods-torn, magic-torn, nearly devoured. Not to mention their prior, er, activities. There’s a flush that comes to her cheeks when Lunafreya thinks about  _ that _ , instead of the long road that unfolds before them. A mistake? Perhaps. 

She doesn’t think so. It is comfort, it is age-old, the need for people to seek out a connection in the wake of horrible, awful things. Perhaps if it had been Noctis with her, the same thing might have happened. (She doubts that; Noctis is a dear friend, a childhood promise, but Nyx sets her soul ablaze in a way that she does not understand, like she has spent her entire life running from the Empire just to end up  _ right here _ .)

Her coffee is cold when she finally remembers to drink it; Luna makes a face, and turns instead to the last two bites of the breakfast bar. It isn’t bad, by any means, although the blueberry illustration on the packaging is an outright lie. She throws the wrapper into the tiny trash can near the door. Outside, cars pass by, tires rumbling along winding roads, people call out, voices lifted in greeting or question. Room doors open, shut. She watches from the window for a while, until the urge to  _ go,  _ to do something, even if it’s just a walk in the sunlight, is too much to ignore. Her dress is mostly salvageable-- she layers the cleaner shirt back over it, sliding her feet back into her filthy shoes. It is hardly suitable attire for the princess of Tenebrae, for the Oracle of Eos, but it is what she has. 

Nyx is dead to the world when she pauses by the bed-- it is unwise, isn’t it, to go outside alone? But he doesn’t respond to a gentle shake of his shoulder, a whisper of his name, just shifts, makes an incomprehensible noise, falls silent again. 

She remembers the room key, for a wonder, slipping it into the breast pocket of the t-shirt. Outside, it is warm, daylight a balm as it crowns her head. 

Everywhere, she hears talk of Insomnia, of the battle that wrecked the Citadel, of the traitorous Glaives, the fall of Regis Lucis. Her own death is a startling feature; how quickly the Niflheim propaganda machine sets into motion. Luna ducks her head on her way through the parking lot, gravel crunching beneath her shoes. But no one calls out, no one recognizes her. It is a strange relief. 

She pokes around the car that they had usurped, leaving the door open to air out the scent of death, a stale muskiness that she doesn’t want to think too much about. There is a satchel in the backseat they must have overlooked; when Luna prizes free the straps, she is rewarded with a neatly folded pile of clothing, clean and well-tended to. (She offers up another silent prayer for the woman they left to rot in the shade of a tree, a thank you to her spirit.) There is a functional cell phone in the side pocket, a charger wrapped up next to it. Where was she going? Was she running from Insomnia like everyone else? Was she simply passing by, heading to Galdin for a vacation, and the shock of the war had killed her? 

They are some of hundreds of questions that she wants to ask, but that she will never gain answers to. Luna settles for shutting the car doors, the strap of the bag settling onto her shoulder. 

Nyx is awake at the sound of the door shutting behind her, shot upright in bed with a speed that she does not envy-- he swears, hands coming to press against his ribs. 

“Where’d you go?” he asks around gritted teeth, the strain of whatever he’s done all over his face, and there is a fear in his words that she had not been expecting. 

“Outside, for a moment. I found a change of clothing in the car, and a phone that may work.” She has no idea where hers is, gone somewhere in the mad flight, and from the way Nyx’s lies shattered on the floor, it seems like he’s out of luck, too. Luna drops the bag, crossing to him quickly. “Nyx, let me look--” 

She  _ does  _ have magic, after all, no matter the strain it may take on her, and while it isn’t  _ kings’  _ magic, it’s a powerful lineage, a Lucii lineage. 

He pushes her hand away gently, and shakes his head. “I’m fine. Just... moved too quickly. That’s all. Clean clothes, you said? Because that’d be great.” 

She has had a great deal of practice at pretending things do not bother her; Lunafreya smiles, and it almost reaches the edges of her mouth as she lets her hands fall to her sides instead. “I think they’re all women’s, unfortunately. Not quite your size.” 

His laugh is brief, but it flickers something to life inside her-- if he can laugh, he might just be okay. 

_ We’re counting on you, hero _ . 

“Well,” Nyx says, and moves more slowly this time, like he wants to reach for her, to draw her back into his embrace. He stops a few inches shy, and scratches at his knee instead, hidden beneath the beige blanket. “We’ll figure something out.” 


End file.
